"Urban and Saban only liked it when their teams could cheat": CFB world react to Urban Meyer's statement on NIL

Urban Meyer becomes the latest sports personality to offer his view on NIL money in the collegiate athletics landscape. The former Ohio State coach believes the concept has become polarizing because it's been adopted by programs in an unethical way. He said the following on the "Lou Holtz Show":

"If you're a woman basketball player like the great girl from Iowa and they want to put her on a billboard and pay her, they should be able to do that. But that's not what happened. What's happened is the arms race of collecting money from donors and the donors are simply paying players. That's what I understand is happening, and I don't like that."

Urban Meyer's comments have resulted in a discussion online among college football fans. Many believe veteran coaches like Urban Meyer are not comfortable with the new development in collegiate athletics because they will be challenged like never before. Let's take a look at some of the reactions online:

Take a look at some other reactions:

"What 3 consecutive losses to Michigan does to a guy," a fan wrote.

"Lol he was fine when OSU was paying players under the table though," another fan wrote.

"He and Saban were always buying players," a fan commented.

Urban Meyer tags the current NIL adoption model as "cheating"

The current adoption of NIL has been criticized by many top personalities in the landscape and Urban Meyer is not left behind. The coach believes it's a way of cheating as it helps teams gain an unfair advantage.

"If Lou Holtz or Urban Meyer or Marvin Harrison Jr., or C.J. Stroud, they want to go use their name and help sell cars, help a business, that's great," Meyer said.

"But to have a 17-year-old demand money for a visit, to pay these players a lot of money to go visit a charity for 20 minutes and they write you a check for $50,000, that's cheating. That's not what this is all about. I'm very disappointed in where it went."

The presence of the transfer portal and NIL at the same time has placed the landscape on the brink of chaos. Student-athletes are now able to move seamlessly from one program to the other with the mindset to make money, which many think is not a good sign for college sports.

The NIL collective at different college athletic departments is one way in which pay-for-play has been implemented. Urban Meyer was not a fan of the idea:

"There's these things called collectives where they go out and get money from donors and get this big, giant mass of money and they pay players. That's not what the intent is."

The NCAA has attempted to challenge the idea of collectives in college athletics. However, the body was met with a host of lawsuits, which complicated matters.